The Framers Forum

Just finished framing this pastel drawing.
It's done on a full sheet of mountboard. 47"x32".

The customer originally wanted a mount, which given the size would have been problematic for me. Also, I would have to get an oversize piece of glass. As it was on a fairly rigid substrate, I did it another way which would give the same sort of look.....

Started by making a narrow liner that would hold the piece and act as a spacer. This is painted off-white.

To give the 'mount' effect, I made a 3" panel with Rose&Hollis A14 Obeche.
Biscuits in the corners. (btw. How about a Most Manky Underpinner competition?)

prospero wrote:
Biscuits in the corners. (btw. How about a Most Manky Underpinner competition?)

Thats why I avoid using glue for commercial jobs. Glue and an underpinner block is a very bad combination one which has cost me a lot of money over the years.

I pinned only the back of the panel, to avoid the biscuit slot. Pinning though biscuits isn't very satisfactory, so I added 'L' plates on the inside.

The outer frame. This is built up from three mouldings. The scoop (R&H A138) will go in the middle and the narrow moulding (Wessex can'trememberthenumber) perches on the inside.
btw. The scoop doesn't cut well on a Morso as you get breaking on the undercut. But I don't care because ther is another bit that covers the edge. Note also how you can tell if you have a slight chip in your blades.

The undercut does come in useful if you have to use a strap clamp though.....

The scoop forms the main strength of the frame so it is also biscuited and has two 'L' plates on each corner.

Using a biscuit jointer is a great idea for making a secure frame especially when you are using a fluted moulding as pressure is put on the joints whilst putting in the glass etc. It is possible to underpin through the biscuits but it will be dependent on how much welly you can apply to the peddle. No so much of a problem with pneumatic under pinners, perhaps hardwood wedges would do the job?

Cheers

AG

The inner moulding is fixed to the scoop using a flat piece of timber to form a bridge. (which you can't see)

The outermost part of the frame is R&H PP108 Obeche.
This moulding has a generous rebate, but not generous enough for this frame, so It's extended with a piece of square timber to add 30mm.

The basic carcass assembled. Used a cartridge and a bit of No-More-Nails.
The whole thing given a good going-over with Fine Surface Pollyfilla to blend the joins and fill the grain.
Lots of sanding to do when it was thoroughly dry. The hardest part is smoothing the join on the outside where
I extended the back. Planing it with a piece of glass is the best way I have found.

That looks very good prospero. I have always struggled when doing that type of frame to fill the joints and the grain sufficiently. Waiting for the next installment.

Once sanded and any niggly bits made good, it's time to prime with the good old Ripple Paint. Couple of coats is enough, smoothed down in between. Btw. it doesn't have to be pink. that's just some powder pigment I mixed in the take the whiteness off. The frame is too big for the bench so a bit of impro is called for. Standing in the middle to work on it.
When the ripple paint is dry, you can see any little defects that are not apparent in is raw wood state.
So after these are fixed and a good sanding I can do the more interesting bit. Basecoat of Black acrylic.
When dry I masked off the centre and applied the gilding. This is Liberon 'Seaux', which is a nice soft pewter
colour. I am halfway through the last tin and can't get any more. If anyone has any chucking about that they don't want.....

Now that is what I would like to learn how to do. That looks fantastic.

Back to the drawing.

Quite tricky trying to persuade it into the inner liner. On it's own the liner is very flimsy and it's an extremely fecky job trying to pin it in face down without smudging the (unfixed) pastel. The edges try their best to spring out in the middle.

It's backed with a sheet of Colourmount m/b. Behind that, a membrane of Polyester film and backed with 2.5mm MDF. (So shoot me... ). From a conservation point of veiw - well it's backed with exactly the same board as it's drawn on. The rebate is lined with P-90. Ally tape would have been better, but I gave up trying to get it into the rebate.

Once it's in, the glass is cleaned and placed on top. Taped round with P-90 to hold it in place and stop the liner from flexing. As luck would have it, the drawing + liner is exactly the length of a sheet of glass. It's std float. Nicer with Museum glass......
The panel has been filled and sanded and painted off white. Once dry, I gave it a wash over with diluted Raw Umber to tone it down a tad.
Quick buff-up with a yellow duster and its ready to fix the liner/drawing/glass sandwich in. I did this with those little flexipoints with the holes in that you can screw though.

The black section of the outer frame is given a good waxing. Once this is dry, finished off with a wash of diluted white ripple paint with a dab of black in it. You have to work quickly at this stage and drag it with a dry brush as it dries to get that even-but-random streaky effect. Finally I added a lot of delicate transverse scratches on the gilt which seems to give a pleasing effect on silvers. I buffed up the silver parts with a yellow duster that was saturated with wax. If you use it straight out the tin, the solvent will take off the gilt. Using a waxy duster, the heat generated by the polishing action softens the wax in the duster and applies just enough to burnish it up on the high points.
The finished article. It set off for Shropshire a couple of hours ago in a horse-box.

I'm going for a cup of tea now.

Merry Christmas One and All.

Prospero that was a truly amazing piece of work. I would take my hat off to you (but its too cold : )lol: . I love that finish. I have an artist's work which I frame up about 100 pieces a year which would look fantastic in that sort of finish. Were can I learn how to do that?

Cheers

Alistair

Well I learned mostly by experimentation, with a few notions picked up here and there. It's not exactly Rocket Surgery, most of it is sandpapering.
The main thing is to know what you are aiming for. Sometimes you discover things that you didn't intend when you are trying to achieve something else.

For artists, hand-finished stuff is great. They can have their own 'corporate identity' in a frame design. (And pay accordingly) One plus is that an artist isn't going to take a frame home and hang it on the wall nice and safe. They drag then round exhibitions - in and out of cars, etc and they can pick up little dings here and there. Even quite major damage. HF frames can always be restored quite easily as opposed to factory finishes, which can be a pain to retouch.

Excellent, love this step-by-step stuff.

I'd love to get in to hand finishing like this but I'd need a separate space, we do have a large porch at the back of the workshop and I've often thought about enclosing it to do stuff like this in, or even the limited hand finishing that we already do, which needs space clearing for - and just liming a length of moulding gets Mrs R moaning about the smell in the shop.

Lovely job & well done mate. The step by step photos will have inspired a lot of the newer framers on here - which I think the forum is not "all about" - but "a lot about"

BTW- I love "biscuits" - I think it stems back to watching too many episodes of "New Yankee Workshop" on Sky...

Merry Xmas & thanks for a great tutorial

it does look great

but you need to see some of peters frames in the flesh to understand how good they actually are

steve, bet you have a flanel checked shirt too